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THE PROMISED LAND
by Zola Levitt
"And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was
separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the
place where thou art northward, and southward, and
eastward, and westward:
For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and
to thy seed for ever.
And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that
if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed
also be numbered.
Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the
breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee" (Gen. 13:14-17)
The Promised Land
The crew of ZOLA LEVITT LIVE and loyal mascot pose before Jerusalem on the Mount
of Olives. (L. to R.) Major Lytton, Bonnie Lytton, George Handley, Joe Sutton, Zola, Ken
Berg and Dottie Kingston.
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Separating the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:32)
THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS
We began our location shooting in Jerusalem at what must be the
world's oldest operating marketplace. It was terribly early on a Friday
morning but we had to accommodate the schedule of the Arab sheep
and goats traders. After all, they've been doing it their way for 5,000
years.
I would never be guilty of saying that I don't like Arab
marketplaces, in so many words, but they wouldn't be my first choice
when it comes to sunrise ceremonies. All the same, we made our 5:00
AM wake-up call and we were shortly setting up our equipment at the
north wall of the Temple site with the market already well in progress.
We had a certain amount of police protection, but we kept a wary eye
on our gear just the same. The market was the usual pandemonium of
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shouting and screaming as the bargainers feigned mortal insult at each
new offer and only reluctantly surrendered what they considered the
area's finest livestock at supposedly sacrificial prices. I was to stand in
the midst of this carnival and soberly intone the magnificent lesson of
our Lord on the separation of the sheep from the goats (Matt. 25:3146).
Ken Berg, our plucky producer, was maintaining his bright and
cheerful on-location demeanor, which in itself is enough to make the
rest of the crew want to go back to the hotel for a few more hours of
sleep. George, our 300-pound, no-nonsense camera man, wore his tengallon hat at a rakish and challenging angle. And Major, on sound,
virtually chained his expensive machines to each other and to himself
as he moved about the location. We had over $100,000 worth of
equipment insured by flimsy policies with scary reservations about
"confiscation by foreign governments". Dottie Kingston, the associate
producer and "talent controller", kept up her brisk and lively chatter,
aimed at making me feel like I really wanted to do this thing.
Two very tough looking Israeli policemen, toting the sort of
weaponry that talks loud and clear, kept a steady watch on all the
proceedings.
When the basic shots were lined up and the sound tested, I waded
off into the melee of sundry Arabs and Bedouins, sheep, goats, dogs,
cats and beverage salesmen. The animals had the right-of-way, it was
clear from the start.
All of this was to make a point. The Lord had been here Himself
and so had His audiences. Everyone in Jerusalem had surely seen the
sheep and goats market all of their lives. How compelling it must have
been for the youthful Teacher of Galilee to announce to the
incredulous gathered multitudes that He and He alone would
"separate the sheep from the goats." He would be their judge; He
would establish their value for eternity. He would evaluate them,
accepting them or rejecting them.
In that chaotic atmosphere then, I undertook to explain one of the
most profound and deeply misunderstood messages of the entire
Gospel.
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The misunderstanding comes in just who is judged and what the
results of the judgement are. Very often the judgment of the sheep and
goats is confused with the Great White Throne judgement of Rev. 20,
when the Father will judge all men at the end of the Kingdom. The
sheep and goats judgment of Matt. 25:31-46 concerns only the
Gentiles alive during the Tribulation Period. The judge is the Son, not
the Father, and the time of the judgment is the Second Coming, not the
end of the Millenium. The first two verses of the passage clarify all
this:
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy
angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall
separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep
from the goats: (Matt. 25: 31-32).
We might paraphrase the verses this way:
"When Jesus returns in the Second Coming, He will divide
the people of the Gentile nations as to whether they're believers
or unbelievers."
I stress that the people to be judged are Gentiles because in the
Second Coming "All Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:26; Zech. 12:10,
13:1). The surviving Israelites will see the Messiah come and will
"look upon Him whom they've pierced" and be saved, so they are
exempted from further judgment. Also, the very standard by which
those to be judged are evaluated is their treatment of the Jewish People
(see Matt. 25:40 and Rev. 7:4).
Thirdly, Israel is not spoken of in Scripture as one of the "nations".
In modern politics we are used to thinking of Israel as just another
nation, but Biblically, it is the Promised Land and not one of the
nations. The scriptural word for nations is goyim, which is the same as
the word for Gentiles.
By Gentiles we do not mean Christians, of course, but merely the
unbelievers of the world. Christians will be returning with the Lord in
the Second Coming, and, having previously been saved, are also
exempted from judgment. The prophet Joel refers to this same trial in
the clearest terms:
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Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of
Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round
about (Joel 3:12).
Joel, one of the earliest prophets, foresaw the dispersion of the
Hebrew people and the cruelty with which the unbelieving nations
would treat them:
I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into
the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my
people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered
among the nations, and parted my land.
And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy
for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink (Joel
3:2-3).
In this latter day judgment, however, the treatment of those whom
the Lord calls "my brethren" is in question, and these would be the
144,000 of Rev. 7:4. They will carry the testimony of Christ during the
seven years of Tribulation and it is they who will need food and drink,
nurturing and charity (see Matt. 25: 34-40). The unbelievers of all
nations will have their chances as the Jewish witness for Christ travels
through the terrified world of the Antichrist. Many Gentiles will listen
to the witness and there will be believers in Christ in every nation; we
sometimes don't think of the Tribulation Period as a time of salvation
but it really is. If no one were saved during this period, then it wouldn't
be necessary to have a judgment at all. Evidently those Gentiles of the
nations who extend the charitable hand of brotherhood to the witnesses
who come, will reap the Kingdom as their reward. And that, of course,
draws another distinction between this judgment and the Great White
Throne. In question at that final Judgment is eternity. At the Great
White Throne the ultimate destination of every soul as to heaven or
hell is finally decided. The sheep and goats judgment is more of an
immigration procedure into the Kingdom. Naturally those who are the
sheep—those who are found to be believers at the sheep and goats
judgment—will be exempted from the Great White Throne judgment
later on.
It is remarkable then, that God would take time out for the souls of
a seven year period. In view of the thousands of years that have passed
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and the billions of souls who have lived and died, this is a small
fraction indeed for the Almighty to be concerned with. But God is
meticulous and perfectly fair. Not a single believer will be denied his
reward. Not a single unbeliever will slip through to the Kingdom.
For centuries churchmen have quoted the passages about feeding
the hungry and visiting those in prison, and so forth, which the Lord
utilizes in this judgment. Salvation during any period is by faith alone
and not by works, however splendid the works. But the distinction of
the Tribulation Period is that the Lord will specifically ask for the
works which invariably accompany that faith. And so it is perfectly
right that we adopt in any age, the standards applied to those who must
live through the horrors of the Great Tribulation in evidencing our own
Christianity. Surely if these works are to be asked of those who might
suffer capital punishment for undertaking them, then how much more
would they be expected of those of us who exist in relative peace,
when the works are quite easy to do. In fact, it is a convicting thing to
realize that we are exempted from a trial in which our testimony might
not actually pass the inspection of the Judge. If every believer of every
age were questioned as those of the Tribulation Period will be, the
Lord's flocks might actually be embarrassed. And in fact, believers of
the present age will be questioned as to our works (2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Cor.
3:11-15). But salvation is relatively easy right now; it will come at a
terrible price when the enemy has charge of this world.
And so God has left out no believer, not even in the final hours. If
a soul would see the light on the day the King comes, he will indeed
receive the Kingdom, though his rewards will almost certainly be
fewer. Nevertheless, this is a good reason to keep up the witness, even
when it looks like we're failing. Once an unbeliever is told of the faith
in Christ, the Rapture of the Church, the coming Tribulation, and all of
those details of the Day of the Lord, then even if he won't listen at the
time, he may live to see it all. In that case, he'll remember. If you have
witnessed to a Jewish person who has rebuffed you, you may have
unwittingly selected one of the 144,000! If a Gentile has laughed off
your testimony, you may have nevertheless better prepared him to
become a sheep rather than a goat in the presence of the Judge.
And that is the difference between eternal life and eternal death.
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The Promised Land
Arabian Knights - Zola meets some long lost cousins.
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The Promised Land
THE SHEIK OF JERUSALEM
An Arab contact of ours, by the name of Ali, had arranged the
sheep and goats market along with the necessary security payoffs and
whatnot. We asked him if he could do a little more. We wanted to
make a program in an authentic Bedouin tent. I wanted to interview
one of those "shadows of the desert" who travel the sands in flowing
robes and are rarely seen by anyone except in "Lawrence of Arabia".
Ali said he had a friend. For a price, Ali could make relations with
anybody in Israel and when we had forked over, he actually did come
up with an arrangement. It was to be the same afternoon as the visit to
the sheep and goats market and we were all a little tired. Just the same,
we showed up at our equipment van after lunch, dusted off and ready
for more Arab custom and practice.
The Bedouins move from spot to spot, living in crude canvas tents
and reporting to nobody. They love their freedom. They are said to
wander from the eastern reaches of Iran and Afghanistan all the way
over to the Atlantic coast by Morocco and Algeria. What they seem to
like is desert and they apparently like it because no one else does.
They don't vote, carry insurance or pay taxes. They don't care who's
running the country and often they don't care what country it is at all.
They don't have telephones or mailboxes. They don't belong to Triple
A. I don't know if they have more than one robe each and I don't know
if they even know that.
On the other hand, they're rather remarkable people if you can get
anywhere near them. Their women are decorated head to toe with
gorgeous colors, jingling jewelry and odd perfumes. They are said to
be honest and they dispense justice fearfully quickly and in good
measure. (I was told by our Israeli expert on the crew that I would be
treated with perfect hospitality in the Bedouin tent but that I shouldn't
bring up touchy Arab/Israeli questions. My host would smile and
answer to the best of his ability but then after I left, when I reached a
certain distance from, his tent, he would come after me and kill me).
They might disappear overnight, leaving no trace of where they
have been. Their trade is normally husbandry and they somehow keep
flocks of animals sustained in the deserts. They know the land and
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The Promised Land
they respect it. They keep their heads covered under the merciless sun
and they wear peculiar dark-colored floor-length robes which I found
surprisingly cool and comfortable when I donned one for the program.
We arrived at their camp, or I should say at the nearest spot on the
road from which one made the desert journey to their camp, in the
early afternoon. It was hot, and that's all there was to that. It was not a
day for hill climbing or shooting a lot of different takes, but on the
other hand, it was a difficult program to make. We kept the water
handy and settled down to a real afternoon's work.
There was a screaming argument in Arabic, which we knew to be
obligatory, as soon as we arrived at the camp. It seemed that one of the
sons of the patriarch who had invited us was objecting strenuously to
anyone in the camp appearing on film. He shouted and threw his arms
in the air and jumped up and down until I almost began to believe him.
It looked like a nervous disorder and that the poor man was having
convulsions, but we cured him easily with an application of cash.
Suddenly it was okay to film, as long as we didn't get his wife or
children on camera. We decided to keep the interview to Ali, our host,
and myself. I learned to say thank you in Arabic ("Shokron") and got
into my robe and headdress.
I had nothing in the world to teach at such a setting. I didn't know
how I would connect the Bible to a Bedouin tent, but when I saw the
robes I realized that we were looking at the semblance of our father,
Abraham. After all, he lived the same way. He migrated from Ur all
the way to Canaan, maybe 1,000 miles. He evidently wore similar
desert robes and he too knew how to take care of flocks in the
thankless hills of Judea and the arid territory around Hebron. If he
were alive today he would make a competent Bedouin. I decided to
start the show on that note, walking along in my Abrahamic robes and
pointing out (quietly) into my lapel microphone that this, in reality,
was my land, by virtue of my ancestor Abraham.
My host was truly courteous, once the bargaining session was
finished, and invited me to have a place of honor on a jutting stone that
served as his living room floor. The place was simply awful in terms
of modern or even prehistoric life, but it was what the old man
preferred. As the interview progressed, I was amazed to learn that he
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The Promised Land
owned four stone houses on the surrounding hills but still preferred his
rustic tent for lazing away the afternoons and tending his flocks. Truly
he was an entrepreneur, a real sheik of Jerusalem, and I would have
liked to talk with him through a better interpreter.
Ali, trying to be as helpful as possible, hogged the show and
upstaged both me and my guest. Being the only one of the three who
spoke both Arabic and English, he rephrased my questions
suspiciously for my host and often answered for him instead of letting
him speak. All things considered, I was really interviewing our guide
rather than the talent. Occasionally Ali let the sheik get a word in
edgewise and by the time we edited the tape we made it look
something like an intelligent interview.
Ali, by answering for our sheik, was trying to build a character for
American television that would be palatable. I asked about religion and
Ali answered in English (without referring the question to our guest)
"Oh, he prays five times daily. He's a devout Moslem." About his
many children and grandchildren, the word was that the patriarch kept
a firm and legalistic eye on these young sinners; the daughters of the
family never went on dates but were sparingly loaned to other tent
families for social visits, during which they might be noticed by an
appropriate young man. I gathered that there wasn't much courtship in
the desert and that our host followed the Arab tradition of keeping
explosives and women out of sight. The lady of the "house" made us
some tea (I think it was tea) and actually exchanged a smile or two
with me, but she generally kept well away from the proceedings.
We realized as we went along that we were interviewing a very
domesticated Bedouin and not one of the true desert wanderers. With
his property, his flocks and his large family, it seemed that our host
had mellowed into more of a conformist lifestyle, keeping only the
trappings of the nomad. He may be roughly equal to those earl |y
American pioneers who, once they had staked out fences and found
markets for their animals, turned into sedentary taxpayers. Our sheik
still wore his robes in the manner that the well-established Texas
rancher still wears his ten gallon hat and his boots.
Of course, the biggest point that we wanted to make with this
program was that a pro-Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab can talk
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The Promised Land
together in perfect peace, drink a beverage and even have a few laughs.
Once he warmed to the occasion, our host even played an Arabic flute
for me and generally hammed it up for the cameras. I found the visit
altogether congenial and certainly wouldn't mind meeting the man
again. He represents the vast majority of Palestinian people who live in
Israel and are quite satisfied with their lot. He would never support a
PLO uprising or the overthrow of the government of Israel, which
guarantees his present freedoms and comforts, and he has what
actually only a few Arabs in the world have—property, security, peace
and contentment.
There was one moment that sticks with me from this particular
shooting. As we packed up our gear to leave, several curious children
watched and another son of our host turned up to look at our
equipment. We were a group of seven who had been visiting a group
of about the same number in this lonely wilderness location and a
certain amount of human communication had evolved. Ali thanked our
hosts in Arabic and Ken thanked the son with whom he'd had the
theatrical disagreement at the beginning. The rest of the crew waved
goodbye to the children and as we departed over the hillside I turned
around one last time and saw the sheik watching me depart. I just
smiled and waved my hand and he did the same.
I'm not aware of just why the rest of the Arab/Israeli
confrontations go so badly.
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Model City of Jerusalem.
O JERUSALEM!
The shows shot at the Model City of Jerusalem were early-bird
specials again. We had barely recovered from our trip to the desert the
previous afternoon and we had another 5:00 AM wake-up call.
Of course, when you get up at five in Israel, the sun is already
shining brightly and lots of people are out and around. The work day
for many begins at that early hour and continues until lunch, when the
whole country takes a siesta. Then people report back to work in most
businesses from 4:00 to 7:00 PM. Stores follow the same routine and
tourists who want to go shopping are often confused by just when they
can find someone on duty to sell them something.
Our problem was that the Model opened to tourists at 8:00 AM or
so and we had to have relative peace to get in some of the tricky shots.
The thing is worth a trip to Israel by itself; architects have created an
exact 1/50 scale model of the entire city of Jerusalem as it looked in
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the time of King Herod (or in the time of Jesus). The Temple
Sanctuary stands some three feet high, giving it its due as something
like a twenty story building. And the walls and streets, and even the
tiniest houses, have been recreated faithfully to scale. The whole
Jerusalem in all its glory is there to see in a circular layout, perhaps
100 feet in diameter.
About nine years ago I filmed at this same location during the
making of "The Temple", a movie based on my book Satan in the
Sanctuary. At that time we tried to dramatize the siege of Jerusalem in
70 A.D. by showing the buildings of the Model and recording the
terrifying sounds of an invasion in progress. This time we were there
to just talk about the place and give it credit as an architectural
masterwork. There aren't many locations that lend themselves to visual
effects of history, but this Model of the world's most important city is
surely the best of them.
I frankly felt afraid to walk through the Model and start identifying
buildings, since my, knowledge of first-century Jerusalem is limited.
My primary interest in the city has always been confined to the
Temple site and the places our Lord visited and traveled.
But God made a way as always. We discovered a particularly
brilliant Israeli guide, Abraham Fradkin, who was willing to walk
through the site with me and explain on television the relevance of
each building. That would be the first show and I would do the Temple
site, in which I felt comfortable, on the second show. The Model
seemed altogether worth two shows if not more than that. We started
at the northeastern end of the city, where Abraham was able to identify
the palaces and streets and promenades of this very Roman looking
nineteen-century old construction. The edifices look particularly
convincing on television because they're not made of plastic or some
such material; they are constructed of tiny stones, each cut out of the
same quarries that Jerusalem itself is made of. It's merely a very small
Jerusalem, but in building materials the same as the real one.
Abraham, with his deep rolling voice and craggy Old Testament
countenance, walked us past the Pool of Bethesda and the Antonia
Fortress, to begin with, and then, on the southern side of the Temple,
the Pool of Siloam and the City of Zion. It was clear, from looking at
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the Model, where the rich folks had lived and where the poor folks had
lived. As one moved south from the Temple, the houses got very small
and the streets very narrow, until finally several dwellings would
occupy a lot of the size of one house on the north side. Times haven't
changed much the world around.
Abraham's show concluded with a very good understanding of at
least the east side—the most important side—of first-century
Jerusalem, with the exception of the Temple, which he left for me on
the second show.
The shows speak for themselves in this instance and it would take
a book the size of the Bible to recount the tragedies and frustrations,
the glory and the grandeur that is and was the City of God. "O
Jerusalem," lamented the Messiah, when He perceived the unbelief
and the unwillingness of the populace to merely accept free salvation.
It's not a good reason for all the Jew-hating that has resulted, however.
Paul could as well have said, "O Rome," or, "O Corinth." And we
might talk today of New York or Los Angeles in the same terms. The
people who failed to receive the Messiah when He came to Jerusalem
acted the way they did because they did not understand Biblical
prophecy. The people who refuse Him today in every city of the world
act as they do for the very same reason. If the prophecies of the Old
Testament are compared with the life of Jesus Christ, it is simply
inescapable that He is the Promised One, the Son of God, the Prince of
Peace. His miracles might be discounted by skeptics, His teachings
misquoted by cynics and His sacrifice classified as merely the routine
assassination of a revolutionary. But the prophecies cannot be
subverted or explained away. They existed before His time (the Dead
Sea Scrolls prove) and they delineate His earthly career in high detail.
Our first program illustrated two of the more stunning miracles
Jesus accomplished in Jerusalem at the pools of Siloam and Bethesda.
A blind man and a lame man, both well known to the populace, were
healed by the Teacher of Galilee in front of multitudes. Between the
Temple site and the Pool of Siloam was a Roman hippodrome, a huge
race track. The effort to Hellenize the population of the Roman
province of Israel had gone on for some time, and would continue for
another century but with no success. The Jewish people were
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scandalized by the almost naked wrestlers, the statuary and the brutal
contact sports of the Romans and their Greek forebears, and in truth,
they wanted nothing to do with them. Perhaps the hippodrome, in its
proximity to the Holy Sanctuary, was one of the very serious affronts
to first century Judaism. In any case, not a trace of it remains today
and only archeologists could have found and reconstructed this
remarkably out-of-place public sports arena of some 2,000 years ago.
As we started to film the second program, visitors began to arrive
to see the Model. Naturally they would ruin the pictures when we tried
to show the buildings to scale. In other words, they would walk behind
a three foot building and show that it was actually only a scale model
(or else they would look like giants suddenly coming onto the screen).
We had to do some very ticklish work with our "wild shots", the filler
footage used to cut away during references to specific constructions as
the talk goes on. For the main part of that second program I myself
stood inside the Temple enclosure, virtually touching the Sanctuary,
which was about up to my waist. From this vantage point I could talk,
as almost no man ever had, about one of the most important buildings
in history. Having a dimensional object was much better than a
picture, of course, and the show presents a striking reality. The Temple
was big—it was huge. The walls measured some 1,000 feet by 1,500
feet in length and enclosed some 34 acres of stone construction on five
levels. When people speak of the Temple today, they think of a church
building. Rather they should think of something more like a state
university campus or the Federal Government buildings. Those who
say that the new Jerusalem Great Synagogue, a modest downtown
structure on a single lot in New Jerusalem, is actually the Tribulation
Temple need to see what the Temple was really like. In all its glory the
mighty Sanctuary dominated the skyline of Jerusalem and it would
dominate the skyline of any city today. It was the largest Temple ever
built by men, bar none. The Greeks and Romans are celebrated for
their temple architecture, as are the ancient Egyptians and perhaps the
Chinese. But none of them ever imagined a structure of the magnitude
of the Temple of God in Jerusalem. It stands alone in history to the
present day as the largest house of worship man ever undertook to
build.
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It is sad that there is nothing left of it but a dollhouse sort of
model, but in another way that model is significant. It shows that the
people who built it remember. It shows that they very well intend to
build it again, and the appearance of a new Temple of God in
Jerusalem will herald the end of the world as we know it. It's safe to
say that that 34-acre site is the world's most important real estate, now
as then.
People interested in prophecy often ask if the Church will see the
rebuilding of the Temple or if that is an event to take place after the
Rapture. The only scriptural answer is that we know the Temple must
be standing at the mid-point of the Tribulation Period when the
Antichrist will enter it and desecrate it (II Thess. 2:3-4). When it will
be built is another question. With modern construction techniques it
could conceivably be built after the Rapture and functioning fully at
that 31/2-year point in the Tribulation. It's a question that can't be
answered because of the basic principle that the Rapture depends on
nothing. It's a free-floating surprise and God has kept all signs of it to
Himself. If the rebuilding of the Temple were definitely specified to
precede it, then we would have a sign of the Rapture. You can be sure,
however, that if the Dome of the Rock, which now stands on the site of
the ancient Temple, is somehow moved, it's time to get right with God!
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Some of the artifacts made by the Nazis out of parchment scrolls of the Holy Scriptures
are on display at the Yad Vashem, the museum of the Holocaust.
"STOP TRYING TO KILL ME!"
The program we made at the Yad Vashem turned out to be the
blockbuster of the series. I was completely overcome at the end of it.
The Yad Vashem is a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust
and it amounts to a grisly museum and library of the indisputable facts
of a true attempt at genocide. Those anti-Semites who recently have
been saying that the Holocaust never happened should be taken to, or
dragged through, those heart-breaking displays of the methodical
butchery of the cream of Europe. Six million Jewish people, from
infants to the aged and infirm, were exterminated as though they were
an infestation of insects. There's little I could add, I felt, to all that's
been said and written about this ultimate degradation of the human
spirit, but I wanted to show the Yad Vashem all the same.
The dark halls were difficult to light, and again we had to be up
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and working before the tourists came. It was a tough morning in more
ways than one.
We began with displays of how the Nazis had treated the Jewish
Torah—the scrolls on which the Holy Scripture had been patiently
hand-copied. There are disgusting artifacts on display such as
lampshades made of Torah scrolls, and even inner soles so that the
scoffers might have the comfort of walking on the Word of God as
they went about their murderous work. We progressed to pictures of
the burning of synagogues and the humiliation of orthodox Jewish
patriarchs by grinning Nazi soldiers in the streets of Warsaw, Vienna
and the other occupied areas. We passed by the displays of the famous
trenches filled to the brim with corpses, emaciated and nameless, and
we saw the photographs of ovens and even the bills of sale from the
manufacturers who provided them. We saw all the authentic
concentration camp gear, the piles of gold yanked from the teeth of the
victims, the pitiful remnants of clothing stolen from the corpses. We
passed through a long dark tunnel which represented the sewer pipes
in which the defenders of the Warsaw ghetto made their last stand
against the German army regulars. Each of these exhibitions has a
story in itself, of course, but our intention was not to repeat the horror
still again, as though none of it had been said before. Rather I wished
to show the spirit of Israel toward this blackest moment in all of their
tragic history. The caretakers had lovingly planted trees outside the
buildings to commemorate those Gentiles who had helped the Jews to
escape in various countries of Europe, and they had labeled the
museum displays with simple and factual data, absent of malice or
bitterness. The fact is, they seemed to be saying, "Human beings can
become maniacs and in this particular case we happened to be on the
receiving end. Let's keep these things and bear in mind that it must
never happen again."
It was the final shot in the Hall of Names that finally got to me. As
many times as I had passed through the museum, I had never stopped
to consider the pathetic quality of this tomb-like room full of records.
The Jewish people are attempting to gather the names of 6,000,000 of
their perished brethren and the task is, of course, insurmountable.
Nevertheless, they have accumulated 3.8 million names, each one
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carefully documented in writing, many with photographs attached.
Boxes and boxes sit on shelf after shelf, each one filled with those
tragic pieces of paper, giving the only surviving record of a living
human being.
I had nothing scripted out for the Hall of Names and very sparse
notes on teleprompter sheets. I merely started at the far end from the
camera and slowly walked the length of the room, talking in a calm
and controlled way about how many of my relatives were remembered
in those boxes. We had pre-selected a certain box which had in it the
record of a particular young girl gassed at Auschwitz in 1944. When I
came to that box I put it on a stand and opened it so that the camera
could read over my shoulder. I gave her name and her parents' names
and the fact that she was born in 1938. I looked at a photograph of a
pretty little six year-old girl with curly brown hair and then stated that
I too was born in 1938. It struck some kind of personal note in me as I
turned for a full face shot.
And all at once I said, "Stop trying to kill me!"
The off-hand fact that the little girl who was gassed was born in
the same year that I was, and would now have been my age, somehow
made it all slam home in a very personal way. But for a few matters of
chance and the grace of God, I might have gone to the burial trench
and the little girl to America. And so I looked dead into the lens of the
camera and to all who might even vaguely contemplate another
Holocaust some day, I warned them to stop trying to kill me. My mind
went all the way back to Pharoah trying to kill my people in Egypt,
Nebuchadnezzar trying to kill them in Jerusalem, Titus again trying to
kill them in Jerusalem after the Messiah had come and gone, Hadrian,
the Moslems, the Crusaders, the Inquisitors, the Turks, the British, the
modern Arabs and now, finally, the PLO.
It suddenly became a very personal matter that the madmen of the
world continuously sought to kill my people. I had slipped through
their grasp so far, but behind me were the names of millions who
hadn't and standing on that honored spot, I decided to talk back.
I said, "Stop trying to kill me, not because I'm armed and ready,
but because it's wrong."
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What started out as an almost belligerent and indignant speech of
protest soon began to dig at my heart and for the first time on
television, my voice wavered and tears came to my eyes. Preachers and
evangelists, especially the TV variety, are always reporting about tears
coming to their eyes. But I've made nearly a hundred programs without
a single tear and I don't even know what they mean. I don't weep when
I pray nor when I confess. But I wept then and there over what is to me
the ultimate injustice of history, that the Jewish people, who have
persecuted no one and asked only for peace for 4,000 years, had nearly
to be wiped out to the last man. It seemed so very wrong that I simply
couldn't cope with it. At a point somewhere just before I would have
broken down, I caught sight of my time cue and finished out with,
"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem." As the lights finally went off I just
walked back down the Hall of Names until I collapsed on the floor
about fifty feet from the camera. That part wasn't filmed.
"The Yad Vashem Speech" was not written out beforehand or read
from a teleprompter machine. As a matter of fact, it was completely
extemporaneous and from the heart. I had just been through the horror
of Yad Vashem and I was feeling every word as I spoke. But in a
greater way the text of that speech which follows shows just how
effective the Holy Spirit can be. The Gospel says that when we stand
up to testify, the Spirit will give us the words to say, and indeed if I
had worked six months I don't suppose I could have written out a more
compelling appeal for mercy. We run our shows one time through
since we haven't got the money to cut and edit and perfect the
programs as the bigger ministries do. And yet I can offer the thoughts
below as a kind of message from the Lord, because I obviously had
little to do with the content.
For those of you who requested it then, and for all the rest of you,
here is "The Yad Vashem Speech" just as I gave at the Yad Vashem:
I'm in the Hall of Names right now. There are big volumes here
containing sheets of paper—3.8 million sheets of paper—each one the
record of a human being. For 30 years they've been collected in an
effort to humanize those who perished in this Holocaust. In each box
we find a little bit of evidence—where somebody was born, where they
were killed, who their parents were. It's an almost hopeless task,
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maybe a little more than half done. If six million were killed, we're not
quite there yet. But they have relatives, friends. You see, they died in
such a dehumanized way. Their families were taken away from them.
Their possessions were taken away, their jewelry, their clothing. They
went into those ovens naked. Even their gold teeth were pulled out for
use by the Reich. The hair was taken from women to stuff mattresses.
And finally their names were taken away and they were given numbers
on their arms—permanent tattoos as if those numbers would have to
be used for a long time. Once in awhile you do meet somebody these
days with his number. Most of those numbers weren't used very long.
This effort to individualize these human beings is a holy effort.
Here are documents signed by relatives who looked for a grandfather,
a mother. Some of my family is in here. It would be hard for me to find
them because my name is so common. Halevi, the Levite. You say
Levitt because it sounds very American, but my name is Zelig Halevi—
Zola, the Levite. Hundreds of thousands of my relatives are in here.
My father came from the old country. He came before the Holocaust.
Thank God for that. He came from Latvia. A lot of people were lost in
Latvia, among them my father's father. He was a shoemaker and that's
what I know about him. He was a shoemaker named Mr. Halevi.
I can't find my people but can find someone else's people here.
Let's look into one of these boxes. I'm afraid a lot of people share a
box here, a little like the way they died.
Here's somebody, a little girl. Her name—Elitzke. Her father's
name was Abraham, her mother's name was Flora. She died in
Auchwitz in 1944. She was born in 1938. So was I.
It brings up the whole subject of anti-Semitism. I don't know if you
know it, you who are faithful viewers of the TV program, but I get an
awful lot of anti-Semitism. One day I opened an envelope and the
paper inside had just three words, "You stink, Jude". Not "Jew," but
"Jude"—J-U-D-E, the German spelling with the umlaut over the U,
the two dots, so I'd get it clearly that I'm hearing from a Nazi. And
we've got some Nazis in America. Oh, they're pantywaists compared to
the originals. Nothing much to be afraid of. But how disgusting to
think that they're among us.
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Well, I want to tell you something while I'm here. Don't try to kill
me again. Don't try to kill me again! Not because now I'm armed and
ready, but because it's wrong. Pharaoh killed me—he took my people
in slavery. Nebuchadnezzar killed me—he threw down my Temple of
God and took away my people of Judah in captivity. Antiochus killed
me—he put a Greek statue in my Temple and he sacrificed a pig on my
altar. Titus killed me—he threw down my second Temple. He burned
my Holy City. He dispersed my people throughout the world. The
Moslems killed me—they put their shrine on my land, on my Temple
site. The Crusaders killed me—they came carrying crosses to teach me
peace. They pushed my people into wooden synagogues and burned
them to the ground. The inquisitors killed me—slowly, with the rack
and the torch. The Turks killed me—they came here to Israel. They
plowed seawater into the Valley of Sharon. They desecrated my land.
The British killed me—they wouldn't let me come back, after this!
When I survived this Holocaust and came here in ships, they sank in
the harbors before they would let me back into my land. And now the
PLO wants to kill me.
Well let me ask you something. What have we done? Do you
remember us attacking anyone? Do you remember us persecuting
anyone? We have a longer history than any of you—not "longer" but
ten times as long, twenty times as long! We have a pretty good record,
except they keep coming to kill us.
Don't do this anymore. Remember what they did to us. We came
here personally to show it to you so you would remember. For God's
sake, let my people go.
And Sha'alu shalom Yerushalayim, pray for the peace of
Jerusalem.
What can I say? Naturally I'm biased and naturally I favor the
Jews, but surely common sense, if not the Scriptures themselves,
compel us to love and to honor the people of Jesus Christ, not to
persecute them and murder them. I don't think the Holocaust will
happen again unless it happens under the Antichrist during the
Tribulation Period. But at least for now, anti-Semitism of any kind
reminds me of it. It's a little bit of the Holocaust when the Jew is not
welcome in your church. It's a little bit of the Holocaust when he can't
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play golf at your club. And simply omitting the witness to the Jews is a
more effective way to kill them out than Hitler ever dreamed of. If you
liked the Holocaust, you'll love seeing the millions and millions of
Jewish people who have lived throughout the ages, be relegated to the
second death because they had not the vaguest chance at salvation.
The Holocaust program was the only one of its kind in all of our
location and studio shows. I had not planned it that way, but evidently
the Lord had a message to get across and I was honored to be utilized
in this particular setting.
Pray for the peace of Judaism.
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Some of the members of the TV crew take a sunshine break before descending into the
tombs of Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi.
ZECHARIAH'S TOMB
The days began to get mixed up, with our early risings and
alternations between sites to catch wild shots not available during our
actual filming time at a given place. But an afternoon I'll always
remember was my communion with the remains of the prophets,
Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi. They are buried together, or so the
tradition says, in a cold stone room under the surface of the Mount of
Olives within sight of the Eastern Gate.
Abraham was with us again and I felt glad he was. For one thing,
he knew his archeology and could speak for the authenticity of at least
the age of those dark tombs. And he would provide someone to play
off of, in my anxiety to keep the flow in such strange surroundings. I
would be underground in a pitch-dark enclosure with no light but a sun
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gun. This remarkable hand-held source of "sunlight" uses up a huge
battery pack every fifteen minutes and more or less toasts the talent as
it lights the scene. We had used it previously during "The Holy Places"
series when we ran overtime at the Sea of Galilee and were obliged to
film in approaching twilight.
Abraham and I began cheerfully at the opening of the tomb which
was hewn in the side of the mountain. Stone stairs led to the
sepulchres below. We chatted about tombs in general and the
authenticity of those I was going to examine. It seems that many and
sundry people are buried on the Mt. of Olives, all the way from the
summit, where the Lord mounted the donkey on the day of His grand
procession, to the East Gate, His destination. The ones closer to the
summit and along the mountain are Jews, ancient and modern, who
wished to be buried along the route of the coming Messiah's entrance
into Jerusalem. On this point Judaism and Christianity agree perfectly;
the Messiah will come to the East Gate some day and commence His
reign in the Kingdom to come. Where they differ, of course, is in just
who that personality may be. While the Christians hold that the event
is actually the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the Jewish people
suppose that it will be the first coming of a yet unidentified Messiah,
not having the shortcomings of the Galilean, in their view. This new
Messiah will get the job done, say the Jewish believers, in His coming
—making Israel the head of the nations, putting down her enemies and
truly ruling the world. Jesus, they felt, aspired to those things but
simply didn't accomplish them.
The point in common is the resurrection. The Jewish people who
have taken the trouble to be buried on the Mount of Olives ever since
Old Testament days, surely expect to be brought forth from their
graves at the Messiah's coming. And Jewish people are still being
buried there in anticipation of this one-of-a-kind event. Christian
people don't tend to be buried along the path of their re-entering
Messiah since their view of the resurrection is universal; they will be
raised just as effectively if they are buried in Los Angeles or Tokyo as
Jerusalem, they believe.
Then toward the East Gate, Moslem grave sites are found. These
are divided between devout Moslems who wished to be buried within
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the very shadow of the Dome of the Rock, which of course is standing
on the ancient site of the Temple of God, to those who mischievously
want to block the entrance of the Jewish King. As it was in the days of
Moses, and again in the days of Herod, the unbeliever is hedging his
bet; just in case the prophecies about the coming Jewish Deliverer are
accurate, they want to interfere with them. Moses' pharaoh killed the
Jewish male infants to try to prevent the birth of their deliverer. King
Herod also stooped to infanticide for the same purpose. The Moslem
view is that grave sites along His pathway will discourage Him from
entering the city since Jewish priests are not allowed to encounter dead
bodies or trod among tombs. The whole mountainside and the opposite
Kidron Valley present a huge cemetery of differing and opposing
views held by people of various doctrines, having only in common
their faith in an afterlife and their interest in the King of the Jews.
Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi, as we would expect, are buried
high on the summit amongst the Jewish graves and evidently were
interred there for the purpose of being among the first to meet God's
servant, of whom they spoke so clearly and reverently.
In our opening dialogue, Abraham allowed that the authenticity of
the tomb might be reliable. There are tombs of well known Biblical
personalities throughout Israel and after all, everybody's got to be
buried somewhere. Naturally it begs the question as to whether human
recollection is adequate to certify these particular graves we were
examining. Might some past wishful thinker simply labeled an
unknown tomb with the names of his favorite prophets and thereby
sanctified a piece of ground in sight of the magnificent Eastern Wall?
Or perhaps a past Minister of Tourism decided that one more attraction
for Bible-reading people would be good for the Holy Land in general.
Or finally, perhaps, a bygone Arab family who lived on the Mount
might have turned their plot of land into a concession for which they
could collect a fee by elevating it to some sort of holy place. As a
matter of fact, it was an Arab family, very kind and generous to us,
who gave us permission to film at the site. They served us cold drinks
and accepted our gratuities very gracefully.
After I finished talking with Abraham at the entrance to the tomb, I
descended the stairs alone, explaining that members of my tribe—
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Levites, or priests—simply did not enter tombs under the old law. On
the other hand, I said, I felt very respectful of and familiar with these
particular prophets, whose lessons I often refer to in my own teaching.
And after all, I was under grace, free to go where I may in the mission
of winning souls for the Messiah.
But all things considered, if we weren't making a television show I
wouldn't have gone there. The tomb itself was a clammy dark cellar
with catacombs leading past openings in the stone walls. Haggai and
Malachi were said to have shared the largest opening and Zechariah
was interred along with many of his students among the smaller
openings. I had to get on my knees to look into Zechariah's particular
resting place, though I could walk upright into that of Haggai and
Malachi. With the sun gun full in my face from four or five feet away,
I tried to quote appropriate passages to honor these last three of the
writing prophets of the Old Testament.
They had hard ministries. They dealt with the returned captives of
Babylon, who slowly and agonizingly rebuilt the Temple and the
whole city of Jerusalem by stages. At the same time that beleaguered
remnant held off armies of the Samaritans who did not want to see
Temple worship restored at Jerusalem. It was a time not unlike today
when only a remnant of dispersed Jewry had returned to the land and
they had to rebuild and fight simultaneously.
With Haggai, my favorite passages involve his encouragement of
the Temple rebuilders and his Messianic prophecies. Haggai reassured
the returned remnant that God was still with them:
According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye
came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not
(Haggai 2:5).
And more so, the Messiah would indeed come and would grace
this new Temple with His very presence:
And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall
come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.
The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the
former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace,
saith the Lord of hosts (Haggai 2:7,9).
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Malachi, whose name means "my messenger", sounds a warning
about formal and insincere worship, which indeed characterized the
style of the second Temple through most of its career. He prophesied
about the ministry of John the Baptist:
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the
way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come
to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye
delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts (Malachi
3:1).
And he prophesied the coming of Elijah as preceding the second
advent of Messiah:
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming
of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: (Malachi 4:5).
Malachi was indeed God's messenger, and he foretold the comings
of two more important messengers.
The latter prophecy, about Elijah, is instrumental in modern
Jewish practice, being acted out at every Passover observance. The
youngest child is sent to the door toward the end of the seder, or
worship feast, to see if Elijah has indeed arrived to announce the
coming of Messiah. Since every one was once the youngest child, then
every Jew who ever celebrated Passover spent a moment
contemplating the possible coming of that prophet of fire to announce
the appearance of the King of the Jews.
Zechariah's marvelous book prophesies both advents of Christ and
clearly differentiates them:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of
Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and
having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt
the foal of an ass (Zech. 9:9).
Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations,
as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in
that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on
the east... (Zech. 14:3,4).
We have seen the former prophecy fulfilled (Matt. 21:1-11) and
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the second obviously concerns the battle of Armageddon, which will
be raging as the Lord returns. It is this sort of accurate differing
between the two comings that needs so badly to be pointed out to
Jewish people who still await the initial coming of Messiah. As in
comparing Isaiah 53 with Isaiah 9:6 and 7, the difference between the
two advents is manifest and the first has obviously already been
accomplished.
The enormous scope of Zechariah's vision requires a book in itself,
but suffice it to say that his prophecies sweep from his own time well
into the future Kingdom. The pictures of Kingdom worship provided
by this "minor" prophet are nowhere else so emphatic (Zech. 14: 1619). And so far as the so called "Palestinian problem" goes, Zechariah
concludes his book with the fact that it will certainly be solved in the
Kingdom:
...and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the
house of the Lord of hosts (Zech. 14:21).
Zechariah is an example (if indeed this is his tomb) of those
Jewish people who well knew that the Messiah would come to the
Mount of Olives ("And his feet shall stand in that day upon the
mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east..." Zech.
14:4) and had himself buried where he could conveniently welcome
the King.
The program was one of those frustrating instances of having too
little time to teach the available material. It also underlined the
importance of what cursory Bible readers have come to regard as the
less effective prophets. It seems that those prophets who wrote with
brevity are taken less seriously, and in that view we only cheat
ourselves. The three we have discussed in such inadequate detail had
so very much to say really. And outstanding features of the length and
breadth of the entire Church Age rest on the principles of modest
writers like Habakkuk ("the just shall live by faith") and Joel ("I
will pour out my spirit upon all flesh").
We were later in our travels to visit the tomb of mighty King
David, but I was just as glad to commune with these others of my
ancestors on that lovely green mountain called Olives.
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Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek takes a break from one of the world's busiest jobs to
share some thoughts with Zola.
HIS HONOR THE MAYOR
I didn't know what to expect when I learned that the Mayor of
Jerusalem was going to kindly receive us for a televised interview. I
imagined that a man of his importance, occupying such a hot spot,
would be so surrounded by security people and official procedures that
we would spend the day in just trying to get in to see him.
But on the contrary, "City Hall" in Jerusalem could be mistaken
for any ordinary small office building and the police were nowhere in
sight. We strolled into the vestibule and were greeted by two calm,
almost laconic, civil servants in street clothes who acknowledged that
the Mayor was expecting us. We were shown into the office of what
could have been the manager of any small business and that was that.
Without fanfare, without a string of secretaries and deputies, and
without all the mumbo-jumbo that goes with American municipal
government setups, we were introduced to the mayor of the most
important city in the world.
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He was busy, to be sure. The phone on his desk had a line of lights
indicating people holding the lines to speak to him, and he didn't stop
his work while we set up our equipment. Chattering in Hebrew on the
telephone, he smiled a greeting and welcomed us warmly. He was
altogether a friendly man, corpulent, rugged and cheerful looking and
he made us feel right at home.
I'll let the interview on television speak for itself, but suffice it to
say that the Mayor didn't really surprise us with his message. He came
right to the point about the difficulty of his job—trying to keep happy
all those various factions of Jews, Christians, Moslems, and whatnot
that make up this teeming 3,000 year old metropolis. Few people
would change places with him no matter what their job and he has put
up with being re-elected time and again so that his leadership of
Jerusalem has become a lifetime career. Perhaps only Nehemiah (445
B.C.), in the almost timeless annals of the "mayors" of Jerusalem, had
to deal with so much danger and confusion in similar reconstruction
times (Neh. 2: 17-20).
I tried to bring him to Biblical topics but he was quite an
experienced and adept interviewee. He certainly wasn't about to
discuss his personal faith before a television camera but he did say that
if the Messiah were to come at this time it wouldn't surprise him.
Furthermore he added that he would be glad to hand over all of his
troubles to that more competent Leader.
In his talk about the Christian factions of Jerusalem, he indicated
that they were practically innumerable. I wanted to pin him down to
commentary about the American born-again believers and he said that
he certainly recognized the group. "They are our very best friends," he
assured me (though our Israeli guide speculated afterwards that he
might have said that about any group related to our crew). I was
convinced, however, that he understood the distinction of Biblical
believers and mere pretenders to Christianity. He cited the Feast of
Tabernacles celebrations, which bring tens of thousands of true
believers to Jerusalem every October, as being inspiring and helpful to
Jerusalem. He liked those people and that much was clear.
I have the distinct feeling that if Jesus Christ were to return right
now, Mayor Kollek would not be surprised that He was indeed the
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promised Messiah. A man who spends his days meeting with
Christians of every stripe, Moslems of violently differing views and
the extremely varied selection of Jewish citizens under his direction
has a very open mind. But I knew that he had endured a Christian
witness on many occasions and I refrained from taking our interview
time to run him through what he had already rebuffed so many times.
After the interview he was most gracious with his time, posing for
pictures with each of us and seeming to enjoy wrapping his bear-like
arms around us for the still cameras. I was able to get my own mug
into a photograph with him even as his telephone clamoured for his
attention.
We were served cold drinks by the mayor's secretary and we
departed, again without fanfare or undue suspicion on anybody's part.
As a matter of fact, the mayor agreed to provide beautiful sketches of
Jerusalem by a local artist for offering on our television program and
we thanked him kindly.
It was an altogether pleasant afternoon and I'd like to do it again,
this time without the cameras.
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Zola at the Dome of the Rock.
THE DOME
I was ready for anything on the morning we went to the Dome of
the Rock. Ali had connections at the Dome just as effective as those at
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the sheep and goats market and the Bedouin tent. He was able to
persuade the Moslem authorities that they should let us film at their
holiest site in Jerusalem. I gather he appealed to their sense of
international cooperation and religious unity. In other words, he passed
along some cash, our cash.
The worrisome part was the timing of our arrival at this sensitive
monument to the Islam faith. The Israelis were already pushing into
Lebanon and the PLO had fallen back to Beirut. The Dome of the
Rock has been a bone of contention for 13 centuries but the situation
was rarely more tense. Jerusalem authorities expected some kind of
Moslem protest to the goings on in the North and the guards of the
Dome were very edgy. The building itself was on a restricted schedule
to tourism. And technical equipment that might conceal explosives
(such as video tape recorders and the like) was officially forbidden.
Furthermore a few weeks earlier a madman had been shooting up the
place in some kind of attempt to help God fulfill His tribulation period
prophecies.
So we were greeted with a goodly amount of suspicion and
followed about by armed representatives of the Temple guard.
It is commendable that the Israelis allow the Moslem holy site to
function normally as it had in the centuries preceding the restoration of
the Jewish people to Israel. Arab authorities control the Temple
Mount, and Israel, even though it overran the area in 1967, has never
interfered with the worship or the comings and goings of Arabs and
foreign tourists alike. On the other hand, such interference would
probably start World War III and the Israelis well know it. So it is
perhaps in a spirit of discretion rather than cooperation that they put up
with the Moslem ceremonies.
By way of contrast, when King Hussein of Jordan had control of
the Eastern part of Jerusalem, he unfeelingly bulldozed Jewish graves
off the Mt. of Olives, destroyed synagogues and prevented the people
of Israel from approaching the Western Wall for their own worship.
The world has not stopped to note the contrast in the peacefulness of
the Holy City when it is in Jewish hands. What had previously been an
armed camp in the hands of the so-called Palestinians is now one of
the quietest cities in the world in terms of crimes against persons or
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political demonstrations and the like. For all its publicity as a powder
keg, Jerusalem invariably presents a vista of colorful quietude to those
who visit.
But of course we were the sort of visitors who keep everybody
watching. We began our filming with long shots of the Dome but we
really wanted to focus on a smaller building to the north of it. The
little cupola known as the Dome of the Winds lies some 200 feet to the
northwest of the Dome of the Rock itself and scholars have recently
proposed that it is the more likely site of the ancient Holy of Holies. It
lines up better with the position of the Eastern Gate in the Temple wall
facing the Mt. of Olives and it seems to cover outcroppings of
foundation stones under the surface of the mount. That is to say, some
scholars suppose it was built where it is to cover up the evidence of the
location of the pristine Jewish holy site. Needless to say, a Jewish
discovery of the very spot of the Holy of Holies would cause some hue
and cry to start the rebuilding of the Temple. The Moslems surely
don't need that and so it is possible that some forward looking Arab
soul placed the Dome of the Winds in a most strategic spot some time
in the past. He must have anticipated that those indomitable Jews
would be back and start looking around for the location of their Holy
of Holies.
As our filming went on I moved toward the Dome of the Winds
and got out the Scriptures. Standing on what may have been the very
site of God's apartment on the earth (Exodus 25:8) I taught from the
Book of Hebrews about Jesus now being in the Holy of Holies in
heaven. I was really getting into the passage when I began to notice the
police gathering around. One particular plain clothes authority was
really glaring at me as we filmed. When we came to a break he stepped
forward and began to object to the proceedings. The presence of the
Bible, it seems, is what touched off his protest.
"Pictures are okay," he said in very Arabic English, "but no
talking!" And he gestured derisively toward my Bible.
I got the picture pretty quickly. We had paid him off to let us film,
but evidently Ali had not made clear that we were going to bring such
a disgusting Jewish artifact as the Bible to his holy mountain. It was
quite a situation. Here we were standing on Mt. Moriah, which God
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had chosen out of all the mountains in Israel as His special holy place,
and we were not supposed to open His Book at that site. Moreover, our
argument was taking place at what was probably the very dwelling
place of Almighty God on earth and we were being told to put away
the very sword of the Lord.
The crew started in with every sort of mollification of the angry
official, assuring him that the Bible was merely a prop, etc., and we
certainly weren't saying anything anti-Islamic. The man looked a bit
weak to me as I studied those dark Arab eyes; after all, he did say that
we could continue with our "pictures". He wasn't protesting to the
degree of throwing us and our cameras off the mountain entirely. After
all, he had a pocketful of our money and it was clear that his avarice
had gotten the best of his religious convictions.
I judged that the situation couldn't be preserved, and anyway I had
gotten in the bulk of the teaching. I figured we could close out the
show with some footage of the Dome from the Mount of Olives and a
voice-over from me concluding the lesson. It certainly wasn't worth an
incident, or chancing the confiscation of our film or equipment.
Nodding in agreement with our persecutor, I pleasantly
pronounced my one word of Arabic, "Shokron," and told the crew to
begin moving out. With that, the official remarked that we might move
our cameras to the east, away from the Dome of the Winds, and get
some more pictures as long as there was no talking. He seemed to be
backing off to the point of saying, "Well, after all, you did pay us.
We're honorable men, and a bribe is a bribe."
We did move over toward the Eastern Gate then and, under still
more watchful eyes, took a silent shot or two of the general area. But
by this time, Ken was in a hurry, realizing that our best move was to
get off that mountain with what we had.
All in all, it was one of the most interesting days I've ever had on
the Mount. I hadn't even stopped to think when I pulled out the Bible
during that filming, that there would be any objections to it. Ironically
100 feet away at the Western Wall there were thousands of Bibles in
use. But then again, I have to admit that I'd get at least the same
reaction if I strolled up to the Western Wall and started teaching the
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Koran! And again, I could go another 100 feet or so toward the
northwest and encounter the very orthodox Christian sites of the Via
Dolorosa at which neither the Jewish Torah nor the Moslem Koran
would be acceptable.
You could draw a circle around a few city blocks there in the heart
of old Jerusalem and cover the three largest and most vital of the
world's religions going full blast. And unfortunately they really don't
have much to say to each other except, "Stay out of my space."
It's surely the most interesting place in the world.
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"His sepulchre is with us unto this day." Peter utilized the tomb of King David in teaching
the meaning of the Resurrection (Acts 2:29). The traditional sepulchre, shown above, is
still "with us unto this day."
"HE LIVES ON"
What does one say in the presence of King David?
It was early evening when we went to the tomb of mighty David,
honored in the opening statement of the New Testament ("The book
of Jesus Christ, the son of David..." Matt. 1:1). The imposing
sepulchre lay covered by a purple cloth on which was written in
Hebrew, "David, the King of Israel, lives on." The darkened room was
decorated with Torahs, silver lamps and various other orthodox Jewish
artifacts. I wore Biblical robes in keeping with the occasion. The
program had an overall visually striking effect.
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It must be said, in all fairness to the archeologists, that David
probably lies somewhere else. There is less evidence to support the
reality of this tomb than of that of the three prophets we had filmed
earlier. David was more probably buried in the city of Zion to the
south of the Temple site and not on Mount Zion, more to the west of it.
But again, that wasn't the point. Evidently Peter was able to cite for his
spellbound audience at Pentecost a certified tomb of King David (Acts
2:29) and with it he made his point about the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. The people of Peter's day well knew that they had two
important tombs in Jerusalem; one was David's and it lay undisturbed,
and the other was Christ's and it remained inexplicably empty.
That was the text of the lesson that I undertook at the tomb. We
began outside the actual burial room in a pleasant garden-like setting
where a passing orthodox Jew paused to watch our efforts. Such
spectators make Christian filming in Israel what it is—a slightly
nervous experience. If that particular viewer heard me teaching a New
Testament text, or mentioning the name of Jesus Christ, we would
have another situation like at the Dome of the Rock. But there was
much setting up in progress and he didn't stay long enough to hear me
start the actual program. I just kept looking at him and smiling, and all
at once he approached me, took the skull cap off his head and simply
gave it to me. Then he departed, having made what he felt was a
contribution to advancing the cause of Judaism, which maybe he had. I
still have the skull cap and I value it enormously. I wore it on the
program.
The technical difficulties were without end in filming that
cramped and dimly lit enclosure where David supposedly lies. But by
now we were veteran tomb televisors and Ken rose to the occasion.
Some shots had to be repeated and we always had to be wary of further
passing worshippers, but we somehow got it all in and it made a very
nice program.
Early after the opening I bent over and lifted the purple cloth
covering the actual bier to show the stone surface. There, in a crack in
the stone, were the familiar folded pieces of paper with prayers written
on them. These are found at the Western Wall and I had also seen
them at Zechariah's tomb (but not at Haggai's or Malachi's). Evidently
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the Jewish people have a private concept of sainthood and believe that
prayers made to certain personalities who are with God will be
especially efficacious. The papers at the Western Wall are meant for
God Almighty, of course, Who, if He in fact still occupies the Holy of
Holies, simply "lives" behind that wall. In simplest terms, the Western
Wall is like God's mailbox since it is the wall of the Temple Mount
and therefore of the Holy of Holies.
In Zechariah's case, however, we have something like the prayers
of Roman Catholics to venerated bygone holy men. Why Zechariah is
favored over Haggai and Malachi is a curiosity, but the Jewish people
view the prophets as major and minor also, giving Zechariah rather
more credit than the Christians do in general. It's actually a sorry note
on the part of any Bible reader to value a Scriptural personality by the
size of his book or, in reality, to overly value any earthbound
personality at all. Only Jesus Christ among all Jewish holy men
claimed Deity. And He also was named by Isaiah and other prophets as
"Intercessor for our transgressions" (Isaiah 53:12) and therefore is the
appropriate One to take our prayers before the Father.
Zechariah must be surprised to be receiving the written prayers of
the people of Israel, if indeed he is, and King David must feel the same
way. The prayers placed in the Western Wall would seem to have
somewhat more validity, but really the whole idea of written notes to
God is unnecessary, Biblically speaking. God is a personal God in the
Old Testament and the New, and if Jehovah seems remote, then Jesus,
Who was present among us, must surely be the alternative. But then it
is difficult to sit in judgment on those who pray with such earnestness
as to put their petitions in writing. And perhaps God looks with favor
on the whole idea.
After my part of the filming was done at David's tomb, I retired to
an outside room to escape those hot lights. In almost every program
there are "wild shots" to get after the filming when "the talent" is
finished. Anything I may have referred to during my teaching is duly
noted but the cameras don't move very much during the teaching.
Afterward they pick up the detail shots and the tape is edited together.
So I usually get a rest break after finishing a teaching and the crew
picks up the necessary extras. Well, I was relaxing in the outer room
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when an orthodox Jew in the most emphatically ornate costume
entered the place. He wore the high black socks, black knickers, long
black coat and black hat of the scholars seen roaming the streets of
Jerusalem. His sideburns were fully six inches long and beautifully
curled, and his great brown beard made mine look like a worn out
hairbrush. He carried a tattered prayer book and was mumbling to
himself in prayer even as he entered.
I greeted him but he didn't pause in his prayers. He saw that
David's tomb was strangely lit up and occupied by our crew and so he
waited. We had been told that the place was closed to ordinary
worship at that hour and that's why we had waited until so late in the
day. But this lone prayerful one evidently didn't know the rules.
A watchman happened by and I looked at him as if to say, "You
assured us we'd be alone here," but he sort of shrugged and smiled and
made some kind of forgiving gesture toward our wayward worshipper.
I didn't realize the impact of the situation until the crew was
finished and had departed from the tomb. At that point our worshipper
looked up at the watchman and spoke to him in garbled, slurred
Hebrew. His eyes rolled with the effort of talking and I realized, to my
shame, that he was retarded. Our Lord would have loved this simpleminded one who came to worship even when the place was closed. I
could picture him spending whole days getting his remarkable outfit
together and showing up far too late for the hours of the place. And I
could picture the watchman patiently letting him in every night so that
he could commune with King David, and the little trespass was their
secret.
I've thought of him from time to time since then and how his faith
exceeds my own.
The reigning King of Israel said, "Except ye be as a little child,
ye cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven."
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Walking where Jesus walked, Zola meditates on the Mount of Olives.
GETHSEMANE
The trickiest part about making a program at the Garden of
Gethsemane was getting permission to film it. It seems that the priests
who presently operate the place think they own it.
It sits in a quiet spot on the Mount of Olives across from the
Eastern Gate and is certainly a very authentic location. If this was not
the actual garden, then it was very near the spot. The presence of a
grove of eight very ancient olive trees argue for this being the real site,
since the olive tree drops shoots and replants itself where it stands.
Tour guides who claim that "these very trees shaded Jesus Christ and
his men" do have credibility.
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But nowadays along with the gnarled magnificent old trees come
flowers of every color and variety planted by the priests who minister
at the adjacent Church of All Nations. This Roman Catholic sanctuary
was built with contributions from many countries in order to preserve
the Garden of Gethsemane and to mark the spot, but it has almost
swallowed up the garden in its bureaucracy. We had to write more
letters, make more phone calls, and beg more authorities to film at this
peaceful, uncontested site than we did for the Dome of the Rock,
David's tomb, or even our visit with the Mayor of Jerusalem. It was as
if our cameras would somehow make their flowers wilt. I couldn't help
a certain feeling of exasperation; in our past "Holy Places" series, we
had, virtually without special permission, approached such sensitive
and holy sites as the Western Wall and the Garden Tomb. The keepers
of those places were gracious and courteous, and glad enough to share
their ministries with the world.
Trying to see their side of things we did realize that allowing
television crews into the actual garden would soon bring plenty of
tourists, and ultimately all those flowers would end up in American
and European vases, decorating homes of the faithful everywhere. We
did witness an incident of a priest shooing off a father and his little girl
who somehow got over the high iron gates into the garden.
Ultimately we had to compromise with the authorities of the site
and agree to just shoot over their fence. In other words I couldn't stroll
in the garden or sit down on the ground as the King did, but rather I
could lean on their gate and the camera could get the flowers in the
background.
When we got to the site and lined up the shot we saw that we
couldn't make a whole show that way. I simply couldn't stand still with
the garden behind me like a painting. I had to walk among the trees
and bring the thing to life. Otherwise we could as well have done it in
a studio in Dallas, with a little help from a flower shop. We decided to
just do a two minute open at the gate and then move across the road to
a secluded spot on the mount itself, where there were plenty of olive
trees possessed by nobody in particular. The iron gate posed a problem
immediately for that opening sequence since it was high enough that it
would show in the picture. I therefore stood on an equipment crate
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some three feet high and the camera was raised up to its maximum. I
was to say my part and then walk off. But I found that strolling away
off with a three foot drop on the first step is a bit complicated. In the
first take we had me opening with sober reflections on intercessory
prayer and then literally falling out of the picture. We were a lot
happier when we packed up our things and left the priests to their
gardening.
Across the road and up the hill a bit we found lots of olive trees
and lots of privacy, other than for one colorful Arab camel driver who
came wandering along on his wonderfully decorated animal. Ken
though it might make a good shot and told the driver he'd give him a
buck if he'd ride through in front of the camera and the driver replied
in excellent, courteous English, "I'll do it for fifty."
And so we had no camel shot in the Garden of Gethsemane
program.
We shot another opening in which I come strolling along the
terraced hillside, passing the olive trees and generally grousing about
how the place we ended up was a better garden site anyhow. At least it
offered the seclusion that Jesus and His men undoubtedly sought when
they spent their nights in prayer and fellowship on this mountain. And
it didn't feature garlands of colorful flowers, which probably were not
present at the original site in the Gospel times.
It was the last program of the trip and surely one of the most
difficult. I found out very quickly that one just doesn't stroll along the
Mount of Olives in open-toed sandals. The soil is sowed with little
spiked brambles all along the pathways and they stick into human skin
so tenaciously that you could collect a dozen of them in as many steps.
The Lord and His men were a lot tougher than I thought. Ken had one
of his re-take mornings where he never seemed satisfied and we had to
go over and over the same shots. I got busy sweeping up a walking
path that would spare me making a blood atonement. To add to all of
our woes it was a particularly hot day and shady spots were hard to
come by. In all of these programs I had to stand in full sunlight for the
benefit of good-looking television. It should be appreciated that many
of our summer filmings were done in three-digit temperatures and if
the host seemed a little weary there was a good reason.
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My heart problems were acting up by this time so that I was
experiencing uncomfortable chest pain and taking nitro pills right
along as we worked. I began to fear having some real trouble, and as
we moved to different locations up and down the steep hillside the
crew was kind enough to send the equipment truck for me back and
forth (as it happened I had to pretty much take the rest of the summer
of 1982 off when I returned to Dallas. The chest pain continued and I
had to buy a lot of pills).
In the rest of the message I talked about Peter and his small
failures of the time. He fell asleep, he tried to defend our submissive
Lord with a sword, he followed only at a distance and he denied that
he even knew the Lord three times that fateful night. My Point was not
to denigrate Peter in any way, but to sympathize with the heaviness of
the cross that we all bear. How many of today's Christians could pass
those tests on such a night? And yet, having seen the resurrection,
Peter turned into a spiritual giant who seven weeks later could preach
the sermon that saved 3,000 people!
And I talked about Jesus' sacrifice in the garden and how He was
willing to pay the bride price to marry Israel. The crucifixion was the
highest price a bridegroom ever paid but Israel, and all of those who
would follow the Messiah of Israel, are a choice bride in the eyes of
God. I borrowed from my earlier booklet, "A Christian Love Story", to
make the point that the Lord and His Father had a choice that night in
the garden, and that contemplating His execution, our Lord sweated
"as it were, drops of blood falling to the ground". In the supreme
example of following the Father's plan, Jesus finally uttered the
difficult, "Not my will but thine be done."
There's no more powerful lesson in the Gospels, I suppose, and it
seemed a fitting one to close our series. The shows normally air in a
different order than the way we film them (which is decided by the
controllers of the religious sites and their schedules) but for us it was
the conclusion of a satisfying good work.
Only God could have planned out in my life that traveling through
Israel is a necessary part of my ministry for Him. He knows how I love
the place and how I love to explain the Word. As a very young
Christian I was told, "God has a wonderful plan for your life," which
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was quoted to me from a Campus Crusade booklet, and I guess truer
words were never written. We must be patient, we must work hard and
we must listen. And we must ultimately realize the fundamental lesson
of Gethsemane.
"Not my will but thine be done."
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STUDY BOOK SERIES by Zola Levitt
THE MIRACLE OF PASSOVER:
A complete explanation of the beautiful symbols and shadows of Jesus Christ
which appear in this crown jewel of Jewish Holy Days. The true meaning of
Communion as the Lord instituted it and as the Church practices it.
THE SPIRIT OF PENTECOST:
From the fear and trembling of the Upper Room to the magnificent miracle of
the coming of the Holy Spirit. An exciting presentation of the full meaning of
"the birthday of the Church."
A CHRISTIAN LOVE STORY:
The Jewish wedding customs of Jesus' time and how He fulfilled them all in
calling out His Bride, the Church. A new and deeper understanding of the
bond between Jesus Christ and each believer—a spiritual "Love Story."
THE SIGNS OF THE END:
Jesus Christ's own words of warning about the conditions that would prevail in
the world at the end of God's plan. Are we now approaching the Great
Tribulation and the return of our King?
GLORY: The Future of the Believers:
The entire prophetic system explained for those who are going to live it! The
Rapture, our time in Heaven, the Kingdom and Eternity. Where we go from
here, in Christ. Our rewards, our eternal lives, our entire future.
THE SEVEN FEASTS OF ISRAEL:
A complete explanation of the holy days God gave Moses in Leviticus 23, and
how each was fulfilled by our Lord. Passover, Pentecost, Trumpets,
Tabernacles, etc., fully discussed as to their hidden meanings in Christ. A very
special section on how every baby in the womb develops according to God's
system of the holy days.
THE SECOND COMING:
The prime difference between the biblical faith and worldly religions is that
with Christ we have a bright future. What we see is not all we get. The life in
this world is of little importance to those who have been promised the
Kingdom to come. The return of the King fully explained.
SEVEN CHURCHES: Does Yours Fit In?:
A refreshing and unusual perspective on the churches presented in Revelation
2 and 3. A Jewish Christian and Bible scholar, Zola looks at these earliest
churches from the Old Testament and Jewish traditional point of view. A
highly interesting and most useful study, applicable to church life everywhere
today.
HOW CAN A GENTILE BE SAVED?:
Christians always ask Zola, "How did you come to the Lord?" Their real
question is, "How can a Jew be saved?" He finally decided to make a biblical
inquiry into how they got saved. The results are extremely thought-provoking.
"IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE":
Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansions ... I go to prepare a place
for you." An explanation of the incredible seven years we will spend as guests
in heaven, in Jesus' Father's house.
ISRAEL, MY PROMISED:
Has God finished with the Jews? Are the modern Israelites the valid Chosen
People of the Bible? A sensitive and very personal look at the land of our
Lord, as seen today and as promised in the Kingdom.